Australia’s bravest kids: Bindi and Bob Irwin’s fairytale surprise for Sophie Delezio
Sophie Delezio, the little girl who touched Australia’s heart after she suffered burns to 85 per cent of her body in a pre-Christmas accident five years ago, has joined another national sweetheart Bindi Irwin and her younger brother Robert in a special Christmas cover shoot for the December issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
The December issue of The Weekly, out on Wednesday, features Sophie and Bindi on the cover dressed in full festive fashion as sugar plum fairies — complete with floral headdress — and Robert as a little drummer boy, each a delightful embodiment of the Christmas season.
The shoot, conceived by The Weekly’s Editor-in-chief Robyn Foyster, took place at the Irwin family’s Australia Zoo near Beerwah in Queensland. Sophie, a keen animal lover, and her strongly supportive brother Mitchell, nine, were treated to a special tour by Bindi and Robert who encouraged Sophie to feed and cuddle some of the zoo’s smaller animals, including baby rock wallabies and iguanas, and spend time patting the zoo’s tortoises.
Sophie, who also lost both her feet and her right hand in the 2003 accident, faces a difficult future. She only recently started walking again after surgery earlier this year to shorten her remaining leg bones which threatened to grow through her skin.
It was a traumatic procedure — one of many more to come during the next few years — that left her ill and in hospital for many weeks suffering from a series of medical complications.
The photographic shoot for The Weekly was one of the first outings for Sophie in new prosthetic legs that were specially made for her after the operation.
“I am amazed at how much Sophie has come back and what vitality and enthusiasm she has,” says Bindi. “She still has some scarring, but she’s a beautiful little girl, amazing, really, when you consider everything she has been through. She definitely inspires me. She lets you know that you can do anything, that you can accomplish anything if you try.”
“I really liked Bindi,” Sophie told The Weekly. “I just knew we were going to be friends…I also think she does an amazing job trying to look after the animals… That’s something we should all try to do.”
The feeling was mutual. “Sophie is just gorgeous,” Bindi told the magazine. “We had so much fun together. She really liked feeding the animals with us. We talked about how we would like to be friends…I think she is already a good friend and I’d love to be her friend going into the future.”
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